


Merchant of Death

by Origin_Story



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 23:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14681922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origin_Story/pseuds/Origin_Story
Summary: Even days later, Tony Stark couldn’t scrub the dust from beneath his fingernails.





	Merchant of Death

Even days later, Tony Stark couldn’t scrub the dust from beneath his fingernails. 

He had awakened on an operating table in Wakanda, the blue android scowling in the corner of the room as Shuri assured him that his body had healed. Good as new, she promised him with a sad smile. Her eyes were exhausted. 

She said nothing of his mind. 

He had rolled off the table and dry heaved, his empty stomach rejecting reality. The rational part of his brain, the part that sounded a lot like Pepper, reminded him that this was a panic attack, that he needed to breathe. The part of his brain that ached and raged didn’t care. His chest constricted painfully as though shards of shrapnel were still migrating dangerously towards his heart. Perhaps, they were. There were footsteps, shouts, but they were unintelligible. A deep voice reminded him to breathe as a firm pair of hands rubbed circles along his spine. But how could he ever breathe again? How could he breathe, knowing that if he did so, he just might inhale what was left of the boy, the boy he had vowed to protect? 

Whenever he closed his eyes, he was back on Titan. Blood dribbled down his lips as Dr. Strange gave away their only hope for salvation. Tony’s life for half the universe— an unfair trade. He was already drowning in blood. 

He was the merchant of death.

Later, when he was able to finally breathe again, he scrubbed and scrubbed until his calloused skin was rubbed raw. His nails were cracked and bled from the quick, tiny globes of oxidized iron pooling across his flesh before washing away down the sink. 

Yet he couldn’t wash away what was left of Peter Parker. 

He gripped the side of the washbasin so tightly that his knuckles turned bone white. 

Steve found him later outside the Golden City. Tony sat on a hill overlooking the battlefield. The lush veldt was framed by the famed Wakandan sunset. Oranges and reds bled together in a spectacular array of colors. It was breathtaking, yet Tony stared at his hands, which trembled almost imperceptibly. The light was too warm, too red— too much like the vermillion dust of Titan. He was hunched over, almost folding in on himself, as though making himself smaller could minimize the weight of his guilt. 

As Steve settled down next to him, hugging his knees to his chest like a child, Tony’s back seemed to stiffen. 

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. They didn’t talk about Leipzig. They didn’t talk about Siberia. Steve didn’t mention the sleepless nights he’d spent on the run from the UN Special Task Force, and Tony didn’t mention the unbearable weight of a throwaway Nokia flip phone. He definitely didn’t mention how he used to carry it at all times, even though it creased the lines of his pants. 

He didn’t mention how its absence felt like another hole in his chest.

Instead, Tony took a shuddering breath. 

“Pepper’s pregnant.” 

Tony’s voice cracked, and Steve remembered one of the last civil conversations he had shared with Tony before everything went to hell in a hand basket, before the accords and the schism that followed. He remembered the quiet defeat in Tony’s voice when he had spoken of Pepper then. Tony’s voice was different now— somehow more desperate. Hysterical. Steve was silent as Tony continued.

“That was— that was what she was trying to say before I launched myself into space on a giant donut of death. After—after Gandalf showed up in the park, she went home and took a pregnancy test. It was positive.” 

Steve was speechless for a moment, struck dumb at the prospect of new life when surrounded by so much death. Finally he found his voice. 

“Tony, that’s incredible. Congratul—”

Tony’s laugh, hoarse and bitter, interrupted Steve’s felicitations. 

“Bullshit, Cap. I’m not meant to be a father. I thought I was. I thought I was ready. I picked out a damn name and everything. But you were right. I’m nothing without my suit, and Thanos— Thanos peeled that away like he was peeling a damn orange. All of the nanobots in the the world can’t reconstruct a person. All the vibranium in Wakanda can’t rewire Vision. I guess I can send an AI to tell May Parker that her nephew is dead, and its all my fault, but I owe her better than that. But, how can I be expected to protect a child when the evidence is stacked against me?” 

Steve felt his chest tighten uncomfortably. 

“Queens?” he asked softly.

Tony’s eyes squeezed shut. He was silent for a long moment before he whispered, “His name was Peter Parker. He was seventeen, and he died— terrified — in my arms.” 

In the distance, the sun was sinking beneath the line of the horizon, silhouetting acacia trees like dark sentinels in the distance. 

“How am I supposed to face Pepper?” Tony asked. “I couldn’t save Peter. I couldn’t save any of them. Thanos was too much for me—for us. His army was too much, Steve. We couldn’t protect the earth. For some reason, I’m here and half the universe is dead.”

Tony finally turned and looked Steve in the eyes, brown eyes meeting blue-green in a moment of broken recognition.

“What do we do now?” Tony asked, his voice hoarse. 

Something in Steve’s eyes seemed to harden.

“Well,” Steve said. “If we can’t save the earth, we’ll be damn sure to avenge it.” 

And for the first time since Titan, Tony smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for my abuse of the em-dash. I'm fond of it.


End file.
